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Shutdown, day 15: Army Corps in Mobile furloughs its regulatory division

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pascagoula Beach Restoration project.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials said 29 employees in the regulatory division have been furloighed due to the lingering effects of the government shutdown. The agency builds and maintains the country's infrastructure with dredging and other projects. Pictured: A bull dozer moves sand which was dredged from the Pascagoula River on the beach in Pascagoula Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010. (Press-Register file photo)

MOBILE, Alabama -- Count the work of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ regulatory officers as the latest on a long list of "non-essential functions" thwarted by the government shutdown.

Corps officials said Tuesday that as many as 29 more employees for the government agency charged with building and maintaining the country’s infrastructure were placed on emergency furlough.

Several hundred were temporarily laid off initially after Congress failed to adopt a spending measure on Oct. 1 to continue funding federal departments, said Army Corps spokeswoman for the Mobile District Lisa Parker. The office covers Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Georgia.

The recently furloughed employees worked in the regulatory division, Parker said, charged with approving permits for projects that may involve the Clean Water Act.

Parker said many of the employees who remain working are not affected because of “multi-year non-expiring funds” which have begun to dwindle.

“We’re doing a daily count and as the funds expire more people will go home,” she said.

Anyone waiting for approval from the Corps for a commercial or residential project will have to wait until a continuing resolution or new spending bill is passed by Congress and signed by the president before the department’s operations are restored.